Probabilistic Approach to Design of Large Antenna Arrays

2000 Mathematics Subject Classification: 78A50

Recent advances in space exploration have shown a great need for antennas with high resolution, high gain and low sidelobe (SL) level. The last characteristic is of paramount importance especially for the Microwave Power Transmission (MPT) in order to achieve higher transmitting efficiency. In this concern statistical methods play an important role. Various probabilistic properties of a large antenna array with randomly, uniformly and combined spacing of elements are studied and especially the relationship between the required number of elements and their appropriate spacing from one part and the desired SL level, the aperture dimension, the beamwidth and transmitting efficiency from the other. We propose a new unified approach in searching for reducing SL level by exploiting the interaction of deterministic and stochastic workspaces of proposed algorithms, emphasizing on the distribution of the maximums of SL level. These models indicate any advantages with respect to sidelobes in the large area around the main beam. A new concept of designing a large antenna array system is proposed. Our theoretic study and simulation results clarify how to deal with the problems of sidelobes in designing a large antenna array, which seems to be an important step toward the realization of future SPS/MPT systems.